Brown Rice Sourdough Starter

(vegan and gluten-free)

Fancy creating your own home-made bread that's gluten-free and tastes like, well, real bread? Then this brown rice sourdough starter (or leaven) is the way to go!

Brown rice flour is full of naturally occurring wild yeasts, and can generate a beautiful natural leaven or sourdough in three or four days without difficulty.

Start with almost equal quantities of brown rice flour to warm water, mix to a paste in a jar - large enough to accommodate the eventual rise and bubbling.  Cover and leave in a fairly warm place.

Refresh (i.e.: add equal quantities of flour and water) each day, string well and covering as before.

By day four you should notice clear evidence of bubbling (gas production from the natural wild yeasts) and the sourdough should have risen up and fallen back a bit.  It should smell nicely acidic.

From now on use this starter to make a production sourdough and then your delicious gluten-free loaves using naturally gluten-free flours: Almond; Amaranth; Buckwheat; Chestnut; Flaxseed; Garbanzo; Golden Masa Harina; Gram; Lupin; Maize; Millet; Potato; Quinoa; Rice; Sorghum; Soya; Tapioca, and Teff to name a few!

Maintaining and storing your rice sourdough:

It's very important to properly store and maintain your rice sourdough - you don't want this volatile mixture to create mould.

The best way is to store the sourdough is sealed in a freezer-proof jar, in the freezer.  You simply need to refresh it before and after freezing.